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Population: 20,471,000

Internet users: 170,000 (2002)

Average charge for 20 hours of connection: 34 euros

DAI*: 0.16

Situation**: middling

The media is genuinely free and the Internet, accessed by fewer than 1 per cent of the population, is little monitored.

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) stopped sending material to the news website Ghanaweb without explanation on 13 November 2003. It eventually said the site had been accused of altering and twisting the content of GNA items. Ghanaweb said the reason for the cut-off was political pressure after the site mentioned a rumour about President John Kufuor's family that was considered insulting and was based on a GNA news item. After pressure by Ghanaweb, the agency resumed sending material to the site a few weeks later.

* The DAI (Digital Access Index) has been devised by the International Telecommunications Union to measure the access of a country's inhabitants to information and communication technology. It ranges from 0 (none at all) to 1 (complete access).

** Assessment of the situation in each country (good, middling, difficult, serious) is based on murders, imprisonment or harassment of cyber-dissidents or journalists, censorship of news sites, existence of independent news sites, existence of independent ISPs and deliberately high connection charges.